Metroid: Dark Nightmare
by Arkan15
Summary: A fanfic that takes place after Metroid Fusion. Samus accidentally ends up trapped on a space pirate research station and needs to destroy it before what's on it consumes the galaxy. (UPDATED AT LAST- Stupid city of heroes...)
1. Dark Nightmare Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Dark beginning  
  
Samus had blacked out. When she woke up with a horrendous creature standing over her. It seemed to have blue skin and was covered in scythe-like blades. As it raised up one arm in a move clearly to cut off samus' head, she realized that she couldn't move. Then-  
  
Suddenly, the beeping of her sleeping alarm woke her up. Samus looked around, confused- What the hell had that meant? Collecting her senses, she looked back on what had happened recently: the incident on the biologic space labs station. She shuddered, thinking about the fate that could have befallen the galaxy had adam, her computer, not given her the idea to crash the station into the planet. Doing this- nearly being killed by her X parasite clone, the SA-X, and a rogue omega metroid- nearly ended up with her being killed, had it not been for the mysterious creatures she had rescued.  
  
In any case, she thought, she would probably be in trouble with the federation for destroying their station, going against their orders, and destroying a life form they wanted to use for... what? What exactly could they hope to do with the X, aside from be killed by them? As she wondered this fact, she noticed exactly where they were in space. They were passing by a huge asteroid swarm, which wouldn't have caused any kind of alarm normally, but she noticed that this was actually what was left of Zebes. The planet had been destroyed on her second mission onto its surface after the Metroid hatchling had sacrificed itself so Samus could destroy mother brain.  
  
For a split second, samus noticed on one of the larger peices of the planet a large patchwork of metal, along with a strange blue speck. "Adam, can i have a sensor scan on that?". She suspected something was going on, but she wasn't sure if she was simply being jumpy. She initiated a sensor run to try and find out what it was.  
  
Samus didn't really think the space pirates would have tried rebuilding a base in such a dangerous location, but they might just be as pairanoid as she was being at the moment. That location would probably be overlooked as "idiotic" by anyone passing by looking for space pirate activity.  
  
Just then the sensor scan data appeared on her screen. The metals she had seen were composed mainly of steel alloys that could have survived zebes exploding, though it was unlikely. Looking at the rest of the document, she noticed that the strange blue glint would have been produced by several metals, none natural on zebes. Samus sighed; obviously the space pirates were up to something AGAIN. Then she noticed that the metal it was most likely to be was used in military-grade shock cannons.  
  
Her blood ran cold. Immediatly she pulled her ship up, out of the asteroid field, and she breathed a sigh of relief.  
  
Suddenly, all the alarms of her ship screamed at her that a power surge like that of a huge weapon system firing had been detected-  
  
-and then everything exploded in screaming chaos.  
  
Samus fell unconcious a second later.  
  
_______________________________________________________________________  
  
Arkan: This here's a Metroid fanfic I started writing some time ago. The first few chapters are kinda uninteresting, but it gets better around the 6th chapter. And in case you're wondering, it takes place after Metroid Fusion. 


	2. Dark Nightmare Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Derelict  
  
Samus woke up and immediately appraised the situation. She was still in her ship, which didn't seem to have any visible damage, which was good, but the "hmmmm" noise the engines made while powered up was gone, which was bad. "Adam?" she said, "Is there any major damage to the ship?".  
  
"There's almost no major damage, but the engines are offline and will be for about a day and a half."  
  
Upon hearing this, Samus silently cursed to herself, then got up. Her head felt like there had been an elite pirate dancing on it, implying either some kind of EMP blast that interfered with the electrical energy in her brain, or simply that she had been thrown into a wall. Checking a small clock, she noted an hour or so had passed. Samus took a quick look out the front of the ship, which showed her a docking bay, with nothing in it. "They must have some kind of tractor beam..." she murmured to herself, then left the ship.  
  
The first thing Samus noticed was that if she was in a Space pirate station, then there was something wrong. There should've normally been 5 or 6 of them in the docking bays working on the ships and equipment. Probably more, since her ship had been found. But there was no one in the bay. The second thing Samus noticed were several irregular patches of a strange, dry, brown substance on the floor. She guessed it was some kind of dust or mold, though that was odd because some types of mold could literally eat steel into nothing and would be exterminated the second it was found. It couldn't be dust, because it was only on about 7 patches on the floor, so what was it? Wondering this, Samus noticed a computer terminal. She scanned it quickly, but it had been shorted out from more of the strange brown stuff and the only words she could make out were "Delta metroid escape" and "Level 6 lockdown". This was even more disturbing. A level 6 lockdown was typically a sign that there was something on board that had killed at least 60% of the crew. When active, the remaining crew were to move to one part of the ship (usually the control deck) and guard it against whatever was onboard. "What happened here...?" Samus wondered aloud, before moving through a hatch into a hallway.  
  
Instantly she noticed something even stranger than what she had seen before. Aside from more patches of the brown stuff, there were several long slashes in the wall. It was as if something had taken a sword and hacked 6- foot long scratches into the wall for no reason. Moving onward, Samus walked into a larger, open room, which had several banks of computer terminals in the walls. Scanning several, Samus found most of the computers had either had their data wiped, been shorted out, or destroyed. One she found had some statistics for the ship:  
  
-Entry 6024: crew numbers  
  
Crew maximum: 10,000 (roughly)  
  
Crew on board before incident: 8,631  
  
Crew current: 57  
  
Crew unaccounted for: 8,574 (believed dead)  
  
This shocked Samus even further. Something had killed nearly everyone on the station. She noticed another computer, which had a large amount of unintelligible gibberish, except for one small section of text:  
  
...raasgsahrjvdmhjgerja-he Delta Metroid appears to be evolving faster than anything we have ever seen; nearly one major evolution every 6 hours. At this rate, it will be nearly invulnerable in a week. Preventative action may inv-euavnjnaigeaolz...  
  
Wondering what "Delta metroid" was, Samus glanced at the other computers in that section. Most were in the same state; covered in gibberish with small breaks in the text with information that was useless to her at the moment. She walked down towards the other door to leave the room; all the other computers only had random bits of text-if any- on them. She walked into one of the strange brown patches, which sucked at her feet as she stepped out of it.  
  
Suddenly, she came to a realization.  
  
The brown stuff on the floor and walls wasn't dust, rust, or mold of any kind.  
  
It was blood. 


	3. Dark Nightmare Chapter 3

Chapter 3- Encounter  
  
Samus looked down at the patch of brown stuff. She had just realized it was blood, and had she not seen worse things before, she would have vomited into her suit (which wouldn't have been good). She quickly jumped out, then looked around the room. Strangely, she hadn't noticed earlier all the patches were on the floor or the lowest 2 feet of the wall. Something had killed nearly everything on this station, and she intended to find out what. After all, she had a day and a half to waste while her engines in her ship came back online. Walking out of the room, Samus entered another short, blood-covered hallway before coming across a small room with a computer terminal. Noting that it was completely undamaged, she started typing commands:  
  
-data on "Incident"  
  
information denied. Try again  
  
-Data on "Delta Metroid"  
  
See entry log 2384  
  
-data on "Phazon experiments"  
  
See "Tallon IV incident (entry 1426)"  
  
-Data on "Phazon"  
  
See "Tallon IV incident (entry 1426)" or "Phazon degeneration (entry 2253)"  
  
Samus guessed that this "Delta Metroid" was something similar to Metroid Prime, so she thought it could be a phazon mutation. She continued typing:  
  
-"entry log 2384"  
  
The "Delta Metroid" is a strange creature we found recently on an uninhabited, airless asteroid in the area around the ruins of Zebes. It is similar, but not quite, to the "Metroid Prime" we found on Tallon IV (see entry 1426). It evolves extremely fast and seems to have some psychic ability, and is highly intelligent. For more complete information, check with research lab (Deck 16).  
  
-"entry log 2253"  
  
A recent discovery has shown that the remaining phazon after the Hunter (entry log 26) destroyed the strange Chozo temple on Tallon IV (entry 1426) has begun degenerating, though most vanished mysteriously shortly after the destruction of the temple (within 4 deca-cycles). We harvested what little was left, which is used sparingly in some of our experiments. A large amount (20%) has been invested in the "Dark Nightmare" project (Entry log 2383)  
  
-"Entry log 2383"  
  
Data is unavailable from this location.  
  
This confused Samus even more. According to this, the "Dark Nightmare" project (whatever it was) had been started before-maybe shortly after- this "Delta Metroid" had been found. Were the two linked, and what were they? Suddenly, samus had an idea.  
  
-Security camera access  
  
access to the security network is on deck 15.  
  
-Station map readout  
  
Please wait...  
  
The computer displayed a small hologram of the station, which Samus quickly loaded into the small databank her suit had for that type of thing. Leaving the room, Samus noted that she was on deck 12. Samus decided to head up to the research deck and find out more about the "delta metroid" she kept hearing about, or maybe even run into it. Also, Samus was curious about this "Dark Nightmare" project she had seen referred to. Samus walked down the hall while searching for some type of elevator on her map. Finding one relatively close to where she was, connected to a large room, she headed in that direction.  
  
Samus walked into a gigantic room in the center of the station. According to her map, the elevator was directly ahead.  
  
Suddenly she heard a strange noise that sounded like someone tapping the floor with a piece of steel. Whipping around, Samus didn't see anything. "Must be a broken fan, or something..." She walked up to the elevator and hit the "call" button. The odd noise kept getting louder, and she kept looking around. The room was so large there was an echo produced by all noises, and she couldn't tell where it was coming from. Just as the console with the elevator control informed her that the elevator was passing deck 20, a creature came out of one of the doors across the room.  
  
She stared in shock as she realized it was the same creature from her dream she had earlier.  
  
It was about 6 feet tall, and had a generally humanoid body (except it was blue). However, there were several thick, scythe-like blades attached to its arms, legs, back, and its tail she had just noticed. The blades were about a foot long and 8 inches thick. There were four of the blades on its tail, the last of which had a strange purple tint. Looking at its face, she noticed it had no mouth, nose, ears, hair, or any facial features except for eyes, which were slightly large, and were completely red with yellow, slitted pupils. It also had talons on its feet, which accounted for the tapping noise.  
  
The creature looked at her, and began running across the room at the same instant the elevator doors opened. She jumped in right before it began moving its left arm, and the door closed seconds before it jumped in the elevator and attacked her.  
  
"What the hell was that thing?" Samus asked herself before she realized that it could very well have been the Delta metroid. 


	4. Dark Nightmare Chapter 4

Chapter 4- "A minor problem..."  
  
Samus breathed a sigh of relief. The thing she had just seen she SUSPECTED was the Delta Metroid (though she wasn't sure) she did NOT want to fight. She guessed it had been whatever had killed the eight thousand or so space pirates on the station, and she didn't want to fight something that could kill eight thousand space pirates and have no visible wounds. Noting the small control pad, Samus quickly looked over it, noting that three of the decks (2, 3, 4) were all restricted. Hitting the button for "research deck", Samus leaned against the wall as the elevator slowly started moving...  
  
...Then suddenly one of the blades of the creature sliced through the door and into the floor, stopping it. Samus looked in shock; the thing had to be incredibly strong to hold the elevator down with one arm (or leg, or tail). A second blade appeared at the top right corner of the elevator and began slicing the door in half. It was trying to get in!  
  
Remembering a small piece of technology she had recently acquired, Samus began charging up her missile launcher.  
  
The thing finished cutting the door and half, and ripped it off using only one hand, Samus noticed with some shock. Releasing the blade it had holding the elevator, the creature jumped in...  
  
...and got a diffusion missile in the face. It was blown back across the room by it, and appeared to be frozen, and the elevator started up rather slowly. The thing got up just as the last frame of light from the previous floor vanished below the door frame, and Samus- again- breathed a sigh of relief. She was now on deck 13, moving up to deck 16- the research deck. Checking the small clock in the corner of her visor-she'd only been on the ship for about an hour- she waited. Deck 14... 15.... suddenly, in between floors, the elevator froze. Samus groaned; the same thing had happened while she was on the BSL. This time, however, she shot a hole in the ceiling of the elevator and jumped out.  
  
She immediately knew why the elevator had stopped. Somehow, the corpse of a space pirate had gotten sucked into the sides and had jammed it. Rather than taking a while to get it out and start the elevator back out, which could possibly let that "thing" climb up the side of the elevator shaft, slice into the elevator, and find her again, she decided to space-jump up to the door to the 16th deck.  
  
Samus immediately noticed that while on the other deck had been minor- slashes in the walls, the blood patches, destroyed computers- the damage here was incredible. Gigantic areas of the wall had simply been sliced until you could almost see through them, the lights were tinted red, and the floor was entirely covered in the dry blood she had only seen in patches before. Walking along, Samus continued noting the damage, when a small question that had been bugging her suddenly hit her again- where were the bodies? Eight thousand and a half (about) space pirates had died here, yet she had only seen the one body in the elevator shaft. The "thing" had no mouth, so it hadn't eaten them, so where were they? The questions kept adding up; Samus hoped she would find SOME answers here.  
  
Samus walked into the main research area, and nearly vomited. Here were the corpses- at least 400 of them- sliced into several pieces each- strewn all over the floor. Even through her suit, Samus could smell a horrible, rancid scent of death and decay. Wondering how ANYTHING could be so relentless, she looked for any computer terminals that had useful information, or some evidence of what happened. Only one had some information, saying "There is a minor problem in the Delta Metroid holding container, recommend immediate transfer to restricted zone". Minor problem indeed, it had resulted in all but about a few dozen of the crew dying from it. Samus walked across the room, avoiding the corpses whenever possible, until she came across a door leading to a long hallway. A blood covered note on the wall stated "Lab door labels are being replaced, due to accident (check log 2952)". There had to be about 4 dozen doors here, and she wondered how long it would take to search all of them. Then she noticed each had a small symbol, obviously representing what was inside each of the labs. Walking past them, she looked quickly at them- a radiation symbol, a black brain, an exploding gem, a Metroid inside a triangle, a- wait, what?  
  
Samus stopped and looked at the door with the Metroid symbol. If she remembered correctly, the symbol for the word "delta" was a triangle, and the word had something to do with threes or triangles, though her headache was interfering with her thought process.  
  
She opened the door and stepped inside. 


	5. Dark Nightmare Chapter 5

Chapter 5- Triple Helix  
  
Upon stepping into the room, the first thing that grabbed Samus' attention was a large holding tank build into the back wall. Not the tank specifically, but the giant hole punched in it. Inspecting it closer, she noticed that the glass/titanium hybrid it was made out of had been cut cleanly and not shattered, shot, or blown up. On a hunch, she picked up a nearby piece of plastic that had fallen off one of the destroyed computers and threw it at the edge of the glass. It split in half rather cleanly, meaning the cut was on a diagonal with no jagged edges, increasing her suspicion that the creature from before was what had been held here. Surprisingly, the damage in this room was minimal; aside from a few destroyed computers, one horribly mangled corpse, and the hole in the tank, there was nothing damaged. This was rather lucky; she stepped up to a computer. Currently on the screen was something about a type of bacteria that destroyed certain plastics, which were in the door labels. More interested in the Delta Metroid, she typed in:  
  
-project information  
  
The delta Metroid is a highly advanced bioform we found inside a tomb- like structure on one of the asteroids left by the explosion of Zebes. How the tomb- or even the creature- survived is unknown. It seemed to be built in the same manner as the Chozo temple that was destroyed on Tallon IV, to contain the creature. After considerable casualties in the attempts to capture it, we managed to return it here. DNA tests show it, aside from having a similar genetic code to a Metroid, to have 3 DNA helixes instead of the one normally present in creatures. That and the fact it was the third "Anomalous Metroid" to be found (First two being the "Omega Metroids" and "Metroid Prime"), we dubbed it the Delta Metroid.  
  
At this point the text broke off, showing Samus a picture of the same creature from before, confirming her suspicions. She scrolled down some more, and came to another block of text  
  
Initial tests, visual and chemical, show that the Delta Metroid is highly intelligent, rivaling almost supergenius level, and incredibly strong. The blades that it has on its arms, legs, tail, and back, are made out of an unknown substance that is nearly indestructible. Attempts to retrieve samples always failed, and only a diamond-tipped needle was even able to scratch it. The 4th blade on the tail has a thin coating of a neurotoxin that causes an extremely short period of unconsciousness followed by a few- minute long paralysis of all but the extremities (fingers, toes).  
  
In addition, the Delta Metroid's triple helix configuration causes extremely frequent and seemingly random mutation. It has some hint of psychic ability and somehow subconsciously "picks" the next evolution based on what nearby subjects are thinking. This has only happened twice, but this is about 300 times faster than the mutations caused by phazon, which took nearly 5 deca-cycles to register, but the Delta Metroid has evolved twice since we found it 3 cycles ago. The two evolutions were the neurotoxin forming, and the eyes later gained pupils (the Delta Metroid was practically blind before this). The creature is continually evolving in this manner, but the biggest leaps happen once every 18 hours, though this rate speeds up continually. The evolutions only seem to happen in open air, as the tomb we found it on was airless, and it took nearly 2 deca-cycles to control it, yet it remained unchanged the entire time.  
  
In an odd coincidence, we have discovered that the frontal lobe of the creature's brain (which controls empathy, emotion, and psionic abilities to a small extent) has extensive damage identical to Phazon Radiation burns. How this happened is unknown, but it gives the creature a psychotic tendency, and makes it nearly impossible to control. It does however seem to be controlling the evolutions and also may give it high psionic abilities at a later time, so we are implementing this find into the "dark nightmare" project, with some success.  
  
Samus scanned it again, then looked at the picture. Sure enough, the eyes of the Delta Metroid in it did not have any pupils, and the last blade on the tail did not have the purple tint she had seen. There was a tapping noise being generated by something, but she ignored it completely. Looking over the text several more times, she almost didn't notice the reflection of the Delta Metroid in the computer monitor. Noticing it, she turned around. For about half a second, she stared at it wondering how it had gotten up here so quickly, right before she jumped aside before it whipped its tail around and smashed the bank of computers. Charging up her plasma beam, she managed to fire a few shots before the Delta Metroid turned and ran forward. The shots seemed to stop in midair before it reached her. Samus jumped over it, but she noticed with some shock it seemed to anticipate this and punched her right in the chest a second after she did. Even through her suit, the hit hurt quite a bit, and Samus staggered back before firing a barrage of super ice missiles at it. Luckily, the creature seemed to share the regular Metroid's vulnerabilities to cold and froze solid. Samus rand straight out of the room, not wanting to try and fight something right now with the headache she had slowing down her reflexes. For good measure, she fired a super missile at the ceiling above the door, making it collapse in the doorway. Running down the hallway, out into the main research room, suddenly she stared around in shock.  
  
The corpses had vanished. 


	6. Dark Nightmare Chapter 6

Chapter 6- The Nightmare begins...  
  
Samus stared around the room. It had barely been 15 minutes since she had been here last, but the 400 or so space pirate corpses had vanished into clear air. The strange occurrences kept adding up.  
  
Hearing a series of loud clanging noises that signified the Delta Metroid escaping, Samus decided not to waste time. Running out to the elevator, she jumped down. Stopping for a moment, she noticed the corpse of the space pirate was still jammed in the mechanism. On a hunch, she tapped it with her suit's foot: nothing. She had suspected the Delta Metroid's blades had some kind of chemical that destabilized the bonds between cells in a body (or simply "making them fall apart"), which could have accounted for the corpses vanishing. This one hadn't, though that could have simply meant it had died from something else. Jumping inside the elevator- still stuck between the research and security decks- she jumped into the gaping hole the Delta Metroid had apparently cut into the elevator. Space-jumping down to the door to deck 15, the security deck, she blasted the door with a missile and jumped in.  
  
Samus looked around. Unlike the horrific damage on the above deck, the damage here was nonexistent. She guessed this had to do with the fact all the space pirates on the deck would have immediately reported to the above deck when the Delta Metroid escaped, which would explain it... somewhat. There would still have been some space pirates here, and the Delta Metroid, according to the research data, would go out of its way to kill anything it could. Samus stopped thinking about that and immediately began looking for the security camera system. It would have a visual record of what had happened, more complete data records (hopefully), and maybe some type of weapon system that could harm the Delta Metroid. She didn't find any kind of computer terminal for the security systems, and her map, as usual, didn't list any real locations on this deck.  
  
Samus walked into the next room. Luckily, a slightly outdated form of security system referred to as a sensor map was in the center of the room. While it was relatively useless on a large military station, it was quite useful on a research one like this. It worked by taking a 3-d hologram of the station and using motion sensors implanted in parts of the walls to record where any moving bodies were in the station. It also recorded, so she could find out exactly when the Delta Metroid had escaped. Any movement was recorded as a small dot; it was useful if the research station had large creatures on it. If they escaped, it could track them easily; but in case of some type of invasion the system was useless because it did not distinguish between friends and enemies. Currently, the system displayed the station with a large group of about 50 of the dots on the command deck (28), one on deck 17, and one in her location. The Delta Metroid had apparently thought Samus had gone up to the technical research bay, though why was a mystery. Right now, she was more worried about exactly when the Delta Metroid escaped, and if there was any particular pattern driving it.  
  
As her hand moved towards the "view previous data" button, there was a sudden skip in the lights and everything turned black for a split second. Looking around a bit, Samus couldn't see anything. Turning back to the console, Samus looked in shock as it began... melting?  
  
Suddenly, the oddly melting console morphed into a giant mouth-like thing which proceeded to rip off Samus' arm. Screaming, she turned around and the floor dropped out from beneath her. Instead of the below deck, there was simply a pit with spikes. Half a second before the first impaled itself into her, the area vanished. She was now, somehow, in a small room that was strangely familiar. Looking down, she noticed that she was perfectly fine, but her suit was gone and she was... younger? With a mild sense of rapidly growing panic, Samus looked at the small time clock in the wall and realized she was somehow back on her home colony of K-2L... 1 minute before the space pirate raid that killed everyone except for her. In a panic, she ran out of the room, but there was a space pirate outside who raised the scythe attached to its arm and stabbed her in the head-  
  
-she saw herself being torn apart and tortured in every imaginable way-  
  
-make it stop-  
  
-and a strange image of a creature that looked oddly like mother brain laughing at her-  
  
-make it STOP-  
  
suddenly, with an effect like glass shattering, Samus was back on the station's security deck.  
  
She could take it no more. She ripped off her suit's helmet and vomited on the floor.  
  
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Arkan: DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN!!! SAMUS GOES CRAZY!  
  
Oh, and whoever mentioned the Metroid Hatchling not helping Samus kill Mother Brain, it did- In Super Metroid, the space pirates revived M.B. and the Hatchling saved Samus' life right before Samus got a hyper beam to the face. 


	7. Dark Nightmare Chapter 7

Chapter 7- Minor Disagreement  
  
After about a minute, Samus slowly stood up, stumbled a few times, then leaned against a wall. She felt much the same way a drunk person would, and almost vomited again from the sensation.  
  
Whatever had just happened, it had been incredibly disturbing, especially the one part where she had been back on K-2L when the space pirates attacked.  
  
Samus noted that her headache, which had been going away, had suddenly intensified in response to the-vision? hallucination?-for whatever reason, and her hands and feet felt weighted down, as if something was holding them. The feeling was rapidly going away, and Samus decided NOT to linger in case what had just happened was caused by some type of creature in the vicinity. She downloaded the most recent records (the past month and a half or so) of the motion sensor map into her suit's database for later viewing and quickly hurried (stumbled, more accurately) out of the room.  
  
Samus immediately realized that she was not in the right hallway to go back to the elevator shaft, and was about to turn around to leave when she heard a shuffling noise. Looking back, she noticed a lone space pirate stumbling towards her. She was about to fire at it when she noticed several things wrong with it.  
  
Aside from a giant, gaping chest and neck wound, the space pirates' arms and one of its legs had been broken in several places, yet it was still shuffling towards her. Samus fired a single blast from her power beam at it, and the pirate immediately collapsed on the ground. Moving towards it, she decided to inspect it to see how it had been moving. Her suit's gloves allowed for some thermal penetration, but when she touched the pirate it was freezing, and initial scans indicated a 75% blood loss. It had to have been dead for at least a week, yet she had seen it walking around a second earlier.  
  
Samus mumbled "This keeps getting stranger and stranger..." to herself before standing up. She decided to look around a bit more before leaving this deck to try and find out more of what happened on the station. Walking down the hallway, she noticed several areas on the walls where there was evidence of blasts from energy weapons. The Delta Metroid had, at least from what she had seen, not used any long-range projectiles, so what had done this? Opening a door at the end of the hallway, Samus came into one of the large rooms that had a large group of data terminals for that deck. Looking around, she noticed something on two of the terminals that was slightly disturbing. One had the same crew numbers on the terminal, but one gave it according to the motion-sensor data- it was mostly the same, but it gave current crew numbers as "3,105".  
  
This was shocking-there was a group of 3,000 space pirates that were somehow still moving after death. Samus stared at it for a few seconds, before looking at a small error message on the bottom of the monitor talking about "a minor disagreement between data. Please check for errors".  
  
Minor disagreement, indeed.  
  
Suddenly, something struck Samus. She ran back to the room with the motion- sensor camera data and looked at it. When she had been here a few minutes ago there had been about 60 dots moving, and now there was 5,000 or so, mostly on decks around hers. She wondered where they had just come from, when she thought of something.  
  
The data terminals about the Delta Metroid had said it had a small amount of psychic ability, and most of its abilities were improving constantly. Could it somehow be controlling the bodies?  
  
She shook her head at the ridiculous notion, but it was the only thing making any sense at the moment. She walked out of the room before she turned around and stared at the monitor in shock.  
  
Most of the dots that had appeared suddenly were all moving towards her.  
  
____________________________________________  
  
Note about the chapter length: Some people have mentioned that the chapters are a bit short. Well, I have more chapters to compensate. I'm currently up to about 16 and I'm nowhere near finished this. 


	8. Dark Nightmare Chapter 8

Chapter 8- Impossibilities  
  
Samus looked at the small holographic display of the station which was currently telling her 5,000 space pirates had appeared out of thin air and were moving towards her. She couldn't stay there; not even she could kill 5,000 space pirates by herself if they swarmed her all at once. Checking the map, Samus noticed a small matinence elevator on the opposite side of the deck that she could use to get out, and she began heading towards it.  
  
According to a side note that was on the map, there were three main elevators on the station. One was the main passenger elevator, one was about half as big and was for matinence, and the last was very large and used to transport large equipment to parts of the station. The cargo elevator did not actually have an elevator in it, and was usually the only part of the station not affected by the artificial gravity. However, it only had exits on about half of the decks-none of them where she was- and all of the mysteriously-appearing blips were moving towards the normal elevator, hence the decision to use the matinence elevator. However, they usually ran on automatic so she would probably end up wherever the computer's last directions had ordered it to go to.  
  
Samus came into another security checkpoint- this one with actual camera controls. She decided to look at some of the earlier entries in the system. The first thing she noticed was that there was a period between 2 months and 1 month ago where all the entries had been deleted. Samus stared at it for a few seconds. Yet another mystery; it was supposed to be PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to erase data from these because they had biological components in them. She decided to check some of the more recent things to maybe see what was going on.  
  
She first checked the past hour on the research deck. Fast-forwarding, it was as she had seen it... then she walked through...  
  
Suddenly, a few seconds after she left, the corpses stood up.  
  
They stood up.  
  
She rewound it to make sure she wasn't hallucinating.  
  
She wasn't.  
  
"What the HELL?"  
  
She stared at it before noticing the footage on the next screen. They all played the same times simultaneously, so it was showing the room where she had been researching some information on the computer. The Delta Metroid walked in and-she was shocked to notice- it stood there staring at her for about a minute before walking closer. Then, in the footage, she got up... they fought...  
  
Suddenly, she noticed yet another strange thing. She rewound it. It showed her firing her plasma beam...  
  
... she missed it. She rewound it again and slowed it down.  
  
It showed her firing the beam...  
  
...it traveled slowly through the air...  
  
...and somehow vanished in midair, 6 inches from the Delta Metroid.  
  
Samus muttered "It just gets stranger and stranger..." to herself before looking back at the other screen, where the corpses-or were they still alive, somehow?-had walked out of the room, staggering, she noticed with some shock, in the same way the space pirate from before had.  
  
She was so caught up watching the security footage almost didn't hear the main elevator activating.  
  
She did, though, and immediately realized she had wasted enough time and ran towards the matinence elevator.  
  
-------------------------  
  
ARKAN: Sorry about that delay, stuff happens. But more stuff is happening, and this'll be updated more sporadically (about once a week). Sorry folks.  
  
And did I misspell "Matinence"?  
  
PS: Golden sun: The Lost Age rules! 


	9. Dark Nightmare Chapter 9

Chapter 9- Evolution  
  
Samus ran around the corner to the matinence elevator. While she was sure the group of eclectic fans (which she hadn't asked for) would not like her running away from a fight, she had no interest in fighting and simply wanted to find out what happened and then leave. She ran into the elevator, and hit the button on the inside which made the doors snap shut. Samus was taking a small risk with this; the Matinence elevator was programmed to go to a certain deck and the destination could not be changed from the elevator; for all she knew, she could end up on the above deck where most of the oddly appearing space pirates still were.  
  
The elevator's indicator displayed that she was headed towards deck 21, which (according to her suit's database that the map of the station was in) held most of the stations computer data. This was rather lucky, since Samus could find out most of what she was looking for, except perhaps the highly classified information. She still had about 30 hours left before her ship could leave, so it didn't matter what she did. If Samus wanted to, she could've just sat in the docking bay the entire time... but that would have been incredibly boring. In any case, the elevator was now nearing deck 17, which was where the ship's security systems had last shown it. Remembering the last time she had been on an elevator, when the Delta Metroid had completely stopped it with one of the blades on its body, reminded her to be ready for a surprise.  
  
And, as if in response to her thoughts, one of the Delta Metroid's blades punctured through the side of the elevator and into the wall. Another did the same on the other side.  
  
Suddenly, Samus remembered that the matinence elevators couldn't take much of a strain before the door literally broke into several pieces. Sure enough, there was the Delta Metroid, and just as before Samus fired a diffusion missile into it's face. However, she noticed with some shock that it didn't have the drastic effect it did before and the missile didn't even seem to detonate. Samus jumped out of the elevator and shot at the Delta Metroid a few times before it ran over and slashed at the patch of air where Samus had been standing a few seconds earlier. The blades gouged a long scratch into the wall, and Samus began charging up a diffusion missile. She didn't expect it to harm the Delta Metroid... not directly, at least. Just as it turned around, she fired it at the ceiling above it, freezing it. The ceiling, which was severely cracked, blew apart under the strain and fell on the Delta Metroid...  
  
... or, more accurately, the air above it. Samus noticed with surprise and growing fear as the sizeable amount of rubble seemed to stop in midair.  
  
She remembered the data terminal with the information that had said it had minor psychic powers that could be improved during one of the Delta Metroid's spontaneous evolutions. And apparently, it just had...  
  
The Delta Metroid looked up, with an odd expression on it's face that she assumed was shock (it only had eyes, after all). A second later, it seemed to realize it was doing it and the pile of rubble shot towards where Samus was, or had been. She was already back on the elevator hitting the emergency start button, and the Delta Metroid noticed as the elevator was half off the floor. It had reached the shaft just as the elevator moved off the floor. Samus was now, she THOUGHT, out of harm's way- the Delta Metroid would soon be 4 decks below her, along with the horde of space pirates. The elevator passed 20 and was about to stop on 21 and, for a split-second, the lights dimmed. Samus though nothing of it. The elevator stopped and she got off.  
  
The damage on the decks had been varied; here, there was some but not much. It was about equal to the Docking bays; only occasional patches of blood and some damage to the walls.  
  
However, she now noticed something odd: There were several space pirate bodies with burn markings on them. Looking closer, she noticed the burn patter was equivalent to the damage a Galvanic cannon (which space pirates used almost exclusively). This was yet another oddity; space pirates almost NEVER fought against each other. There was an odd tapping/thudding noise in the background, though the only noise it could possibly be was the Delta Metroid and THAT was four decks below. It quickly moved to the back of her mind as she walked into the main part of the deck.  
  
Unlike the rest of the decks on the ship, this one was basically three hallways connecting to the three elevators and one giant room with a gigantic computer database and a large number of terminals. While they COULD have been made smaller with equivalent memory, it was harder to hack into large computers physically. As she approached the nearest computer, the noise increased. Something about it bugged the rear of her mind, but she paid it no heed.  
  
Then something she had never hoped to see again walked into the room.  
  
It was like looking into a mirror- before her suit had been changed by the X infection.  
  
The SA-X.  
  
Arkan says: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Life happened. What can I say. Unfortunatley, I've got finals and end-of-school-year-project-madness coming up soon, so you may not have another update for a while. For now though... courage.  
  
NOTE ABOUT THE CHAPTER: If you're wondering about that tapping noise described towards the end of the chapter, play fusion again. The SA-X made that very distinct "Tonk, tonk, tonk" noise when walking. 


	10. Dark Nightmare Chapter 10

Chapter 10-Nightmare Revealed  
  
Samus stared at the SA-X for a second. However one had survived the detonation of the BSL and gotten here, it was there. Samus backed up and walked right into the wall, though she could've sworn she had been standing in the middle of the room. The SA-X, walking forward, brought up its beam cannon. A small orb of energy formed at its end as the SA-X charged up its Hyper Beam.  
  
It fired.  
  
Time seemed to move in slow motion.  
  
Suddenly, just as the beam hit her in the chest, it and the SA-X vanished into thin air, the lights came on brighter, and she fell backwards as the wall she had run into suddenly vanished. Samus got up rather sluggishly, since it felt like her suit had turned into lead, but only for a few seconds before she was up. She wondered what had happened, but she decided to move on since nothing seemed to have been damaged and the SA-X had apparently not been there. After all, why stay and look for something that had never existed? Besides, even if the SA-X had been there, she had no interest in fighting another one.  
  
The first working computer Samus came up on had a small alert box about a password for restricted information being entered recently. Samus could hardly believe her luck; she could now access the files on the Dark nightmare project. She sat down at the computer and entered:  
  
dark Nightmare Project Information  
  
-Pick one:  
  
Log 1 (initial)  
  
Log 2  
  
Log 3  
  
Log 4  
  
Log 5 (Last Recorded)  
  
Log 1  
  
- The dark nightmare project was initially begun in an attempt to clone Mother Brain (see log 1 for full information), who was destroyed when she set off a bomb that destroyed Zebes in an attempt to kill Samus Aran. All initial attempts failed; the clones had a high level of mental retardation and barely lived for minutes before they suffocated from being unable to breathe. The discovery of the Delta Metroid brought out a new idea: Implanting Phazon onto its brain, while a risk (it could have possibly caused psychosis), could have solved the problem. Two more cloning attempts failed before one succeeded in surviving for a deca-cycle, the average period for the risks of cloning to manifest themselves in the clone. End log.  
  
Samus stared at this. Mother brain had, twice, nearly killed her, and somehow they had kept a genetic sample and the space pirates were cloning it. She continued:  
  
log 2  
  
-The Dark Nightmare clone of mother brain has several interesting abilities. The original could, to a small extent, control and co-ordinate space pirates to make them a more formidable force. The Dark Nightmare seems to have a greater manifestation of this. Also, it has a miniscule tendency to randomly mutate, similar to the Delta Metroid. The one mutation so far has given it flight; while this is not particularly useful in small areas because of the huge wingspan needed to keep it in the air, it is quite useful in an open area. End Log.  
  
Log 3  
  
-We have discovered a new ability of the Dark Nightmare. It affects a living being, who hallucinates (usually something incredibly terrifying/shocking) over a period of several days. Each time, the victim slowly loses control of his/her/its body; this is described initially as its limbs feeling weighted down. At the end of the cycle, typically the 13th "nightmare" in, the victim falls completely under the Dark Nightmare's control. This has only begun to affect the Space Pirates on the ship. End Log  
  
log 4  
  
-We have doomed ourselves. The dark nightmare's sphere of influence with its mind-controlling ability is growing steadily, and all attempts to terminate it have met with disaster at the hands of its mind-controlled crew. We have lost all decks below 11. We have discovered that being nearby the Delta Metroid negates the mind control, so we may stop this by releasing it. It escaped by itself during an accident involving a bacteria that ate at the material that contained it. The Delta Metroid then went on a rampage on a few decks before vanishing. We have been mapping the rate at which the Dark Nightmare's sphere of influence has been expanding, but we need one more data point and the Sphere has long since extended off the station. End log.  
  
log 5  
  
-All but the upper command and a small portion of the military are dead, or under the Dark Nightmare's influence. We have now discovered that the Dark Nightmare can induce a bioelectric field in dead creatures, thus re- animating them. The Delta Metroid refuses to move away from deck 16, and now the automatic defenses have reportedly disabled the Hunter's ship (passing through) and brought it onboard. We do not know why the Dark Nightmare does not simply take over what is left of the crew, but it seems to ignore anything on the Command Deck. We may have doomed the galaxy to enslavement under the Dark Nightmare. End log.  
  
Dark Nightmare Sphere of Influence  
  
The computer brought up a reading of the space around the station, with a shadowy gray bubble (which she assumed was the Sphere of influence) surrounding it. The date read about 12 days ago.  
  
On a hunch, she entered in the co-ordinates where she had the dream about the Delta Metroid, since that could not have been a normal dream, and could have marked her entering the sphere.  
  
The computer calculated for a minute, then brought up a small picture of the galaxy with a slider for time. It gave the estimated time for encompassing the area of explored space about 2 months.  
  
Two months until it was enslaved. --------------------------------------- ARKAN SAYS: Rushed? Huh? How could it be rushed? I wrote this all over 9 months ago. And it still isn't finished. Sad, eh?  
  
ABOUT THE CHAPTER: I don't particularly like this one, but it advances the story. 


	11. Dark Nightmare Chapter 11

Chapter 11- (No name)  
  
Samus checked the file. It was not truly a record, but rather a journal apparently by a high-ranking space pirate scientist. The lesser "grunt" space pirates, aside from not knowing about the project, weren't quite intelligent enough to write like that.  
  
Suddenly, a question struck Samus. The file said the Dark Nightmare had exhibited a mutation-wings, but Mother brain, the original, was simply a head. Even the bio-robotic suit it controlled the second time she killed it was too ungainly and clumsy to do something like that. Maybe...  
  
Samus called up a picture. There was precisely one.  
  
The dark nightmare did look like mother brain, but it was obvious they modified its genetic code when they cloned it. The head was a darker color, and it was obvious they had used phazon on it-there were veins of it attached to its head. The bio-suit looked more streamlined and smaller, and looked to be directly built into it's head, so it would be an actual part of its "body". There were no wings in the picture, implying it had been taken early in the project.  
  
Then it hit her.  
  
She had to kill it as soon as possible.  
  
The second her ship was repaired, she had to destroy the entire station. Yet again, she had to set the self-destruct on something ELSE.  
  
But she didn't just have to kill it because of the obvious threat to civilization. Its powers already had affected her... twice? Three times? She had to find out how long the average time was.  
  
If it was under a day, she was already as good as dead.  
  
However, first she needed to know where the self-destruct was.  
  
She returned to the computer console.  
  
self destruct mechanism  
  
-Deck 1  
  
self destruct maximum time  
  
-2 hours  
  
Samus had to get down to deck one. She figured the fastest way would be the cargo shaft; the main elevator was broken or being used by the mind- controlled space pirates, and the matinence elevator was on her deck and wouldn't move without prior programming. Luckily, the cargo elevator did exit onto deck 2-not deck 1, but there were manual stairs for emergencies. Calling up her map, she zoomed in on deck 1...  
  
...and paused. Off to the side was a small protrusion that was hidden behind a wireframe model of the reactor, nearly too small to be seen anyway. The map only gave it as "ruin DM". She would have to check that.  
  
The cargo elevator wasn't that far, and it took a few minutes to get to it. Samus opened the giant doors and stepped inside.  
  
After getting over the momentary confusion of walking through the edge of a gravity field, Samus immediately noticed something. Typically, the cargo elevators were about 100 meters across, about the size of an old field used in some ancient sport on Earth. This one was-she guessed-about half a kilometer in diameter, maybe more. Whatever they had used this for, it had been pretty huge.  
  
She couldn't really move, so she had to use her power beam to move by firing it upwards and letting the recoil from the gun move her. It wasn't uncommon in such situations for new Federation Trooper recruits to completely panic in zero gravity and nearly suffocate from hyperventilating all their oxygen if they were in space.  
  
The zero gravity made for no friction, so Samus was moving pretty quickly.  
  
Then something slammed into her back.  
  
Samus almost shouted in surprise. She twisted around and saw a piece of metal sticking out of the wall. It was around deck 4.  
  
She looked at the wall... but there wasn't one.  
  
Just a huge gaping hole where the wall should've been.  
  
-----------------------  
  
ARKAN SAYS: Yes, there's no name. Why? No reason. Shut up. 


	12. Dark Nightmare Chapter 12

Chapter 12- Dark Nightmare  
  
Samus looked at the hole. Having become accustomed to the odd things that had gone on over the past few hours, it came as no surprise that the hole had not been opened by explosives. It looked as if some huge... CREATURE... had simply torn open the hole... but she hadn't seen any other similar sized holes on the way down, and any on higher decks would've set off alarms until they were sealed. Then why...?  
  
Whatever the reason, Samus' curiosity overcame her and she floated into the hole.  
  
Without the gravity adjustment controllers that were usually along the entrance doors, Samus dropped to the deck like a rock the second she was inside. Getting up, she looked around. She was in a large, nondescript room... nondescript, aside from the huge gashes in the wall, the mutilated space pirates, and the other wonderful examples of ruined-space-station- decor. The corpses looked like they had been chewed on, stepped on, or thrown into walls. Burn marks from Galvanic Cannon blasts practically covered every inch of the walls, and some of the space pirates looked like they had been shot also.  
  
The oddest thing was a strange, light blue, sticky fluid that was scattered on the floor. Something about it was bothering Samus. It seemed oddly familiar...  
  
Samus checked it; the fluid was almost completely inert and reactionless, but was also slightly radioactive. Her suit's sensors informed her it had been a highly radioactive liquid, but it decayed extremely quickly and became nonradioactive in about a week, unless in certain conditions which would make it radioactive for about 5 years. It caused random mutations and burns...  
  
Samus remembered. It was phazon, or some form of it.  
  
Samus remembered reading about how most of the pirate's phazon degraded quickly after she killed Metroid Prime. Apparently, the pirates had "freezed" a good deal of it, and this had been let out of containment recently. But why? Phazon, in its purest form, was radioactive enough to cause cancer in a matter of seconds on unprotected creatures, and this was sprayed across the floor. No space pirate would be stupid enough to do that.  
  
There was nothing more in the room to see, so Samus went into the hallway next to it. The hallway was pretty large, and more of the phazon was scattered along it, but in increasingly larger puddles. The space pirate corpses in the hallway looked like they had been incinerated by some ultra- high energy weapon now. Only some of them looked this way; the rest seemed to have been killed in the same manner as the others.  
  
The hallway ended, and Samus stepped into the next room.  
  
And stopped.  
  
The room was ringed by computer consoles, most of which were flashing red with alarm symbols. Those that were working, that is. Most were disabled. Space pirate corpses were sprayed liberally across the room, and for some odd reason all had been killed by galvanic cannons- none by being mutilated, like those in the previous rooms.  
  
But Samus was paying more attention to the center of the room.  
  
In the center of the room was a large cyndrilical tank, which looked like some odd hybrid of a cloning tank and a stasis tank. It was intact, and unlike the rest of the room, completely unharmed. And what was inside...  
  
Samus had seen it before. Three times. She had seen it once on Zebes, floating in a tank. The second time, it had almost killed her. The third time was more like what she was seeing here, but only a picture.  
  
Mother Brain.  
  
The Dark Nightmare.  
  
In some form of a perverse blessing, the tank seemed active, and it wasn't moving. Samus studied it for a few seconds.  
  
The Dark nightmare was about the same size as mother brain as it had been the second time. It had a modified form of the suit Mother Brain had been using, and was more streamlined and biological. The head was the same, except a black color and veins of phazon were pulsing on it. It was "facing" her, so she couldn't see from her angle whether it did or did not have wings, as the computer file said it did. Samus moved closer so she could see it better.  
  
It twitched.  
  
Samus didn't notice this for a second. But she realized: If the tank was active, it wouldn't be moving...  
  
Samus jumped backwards as it burst out of the tank.  
  
ARKAN SAYS: This chapter is one of my favorites. If you've been paying attention to the 'fic and a lot of the small details, you'll notice a lot more stuff in this chapter than what I typed. 


	13. Dark Nightmare Chapter 13

Chapter 13-Uh oh!  
  
The Dark Nightmare twisted around, noticing it had missed Samus, and ran forward-Samus noticed it had gotten quite a bit faster-  
  
Unfortunatley, samus wasn't doing much noticing after that as it almost stepped on her, though she dodged, and fired a plasma beam at its head. Unfortunately it didn't do anything and it turned around and its hyper beam burned a hole in the floor where Samus had been a second ago (why did she have to have lost it with the rest of her suit systems?). Samus fired a diffusion missile at it, which had an effect... a very small one. The dark nightmare flinched, then looked around for Samus... who was running out the way she came.  
  
Samus knew she couldn't kill it with her current weapons- but, unfortunately, there were no convenient Metroid hatchlings around to leech the hyper beam from the dark nightmare and give it to her, so she was stuck. She could just self-destruct the station the second she could, which would kill two birds with one stone...  
  
Samus got to the room connected to the Cargo elevator shaft and jumped out. She moved quickly down to the first level, where the self-destruct mechanism was supposed to be.  
  
There was another gaping hole in the deck wall down here. This was a cause for panic. If the dark nightmare had disabled the self-destruct mechanism, she-and pretty much everything alive-was as good as dead. She was about to go in when she heard an odd 'whoosh' noise... like a large object moving quickly towards he-  
  
Samus moved to the side just as the dark nightmare slammed into the bottom of the shaft, creating a huge dent in the bottom. She had forgotten its wings... there was no other way it could've gotten down the shaft so quickly. There wasn't much time for speculation, since it fired its hyper beam and blew a large hole in the wall. Samus couldn't fight it down here; one wrong hyper beam shot and it might open to vacuum, exposing her to a slow, painful death as her suit's life support systems gave out...  
  
But that wasn't going to happen. Samus had to figure out some way of getting it back up the shaft so she could get into the deck 1, which the Dark Nightmare was currently blocking. Something was nagging her, but she didn't exactly have time to remember what it was as another hyper beam flew past her and burned a hole in the wall. Samus fired a missile at it, which did nothing as expected but distracted the Dark Nightmare...  
  
Samus almost hit herself; of course, since there was no gravity, anything she shot at it would make it move in the other direction. She started firing all her super missiles at it; none harmed it, but it started moving.  
  
An insistent beeping informed her she had 5 missiles left, but too late- the dark nightmare had realized what was going on, but it was already moving past level 5. Samus practically flew into the door for level 1.  
  
Samus had to find some way to seal the door... Ah, of course! Hopefully, this station had standard safety systems... Samus switched to her Plasma beam and fired a shot at the door.  
  
As expected, 3 reinforced blast shields dropped over it just as something large (guess what?) slammed against it. By the time it got through, Samus would find another way off the deck. Samus turned around for the self- destruct mechanism...  
  
...and stared at the galaxy's death.  
  
The self-destruct mechanism had been torn out of the wall.  
  
---------------------------------------  
  
ARKAN SEZ: Yyyeaahhh, this one's kinda short, as are the next few. They're also kinda sucky. I started getting writer's block at the time... because school had started. Speaking of which, school just ended for me, so I'll probably have a regular updating schedule now until I run out of prewritten chapters. 


	14. Dark Nightmare Chapter 14

ARKAN SAYS (in advance): OK, I have to admit it: This chapter sucks, and so does the next one. I don't like either, but I can't think of a damn better way of writing them, so you're stuck with sucky chapters. I'm not even going to give them my usual check-for-errors (I wrote this all about a year ago), because that would require my eyes looking at such crap as would make them explode.  
  
Yeah, I don't like them.  
  
Chapter 14- The beginning.  
  
Samus dropped to the floor. All nothing. All these years, the death of her parents, all the fighting, come to this: A space pirate experiment that had gone out of control. And that simple little experiment just doomed the galaxy... probably even the entire universe.  
  
She should probably just end it now...  
  
Samus stopped that line of thinking. There had to be a way to stop the dark nightmare. Even if she died, she would make sure it was dead.  
  
"I wouldn't be so sure of that..."  
  
Samus whipped around. The voice sounded like several people speaking at once- the loudest sounding feminine- and oddly distorted. But it had come from... everywhere? Nowhere? Both, if that was possible?  
  
"Beep beep."  
  
There it was again...  
  
Suddenly, the "message incoming" alarm on her visor beeped twice. Samus, with a bit of shock, activated her suit's radio.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
"Samus, i'm receivind a disturbing report from the federation... are there any consoles nearby you can receive this to?"  
  
As a matter of fact, there was (which, she noted, WASN'T hooked to the self- destruct) and she set up a communications channel with her ship. What looked like one of the multitude of news broadcast her ship automatically sorted through for notable events started playing.  
  
"...And we have reports coming from R-26Z, a small colony world, that there's some sort of uprising occuring. This revolt seems to have sprung from nowhere, as the populace has shown no signs of discontent and morale at a military base on the same planet is extremely high. The revolutionaries seem to be targeting whoever they can, and there are unfounded rumors that the dissidents are using some sort of "Re-animation" technology. There are also..."  
  
Samus wondered why Adam had thought this was important... then she ran a check on the location of the planet.  
  
R-26Z was a relatively unimportant planet, used mostly as a supply base and also to mine a rare mineral... but the location was more important.  
  
It was located right outside of the system where Zebes had once been. Where she was now.  
  
And, according to her suit's computer, it had fallen under the Dark Nightmare's influence about an hour ago (give or take about half an hour due to innacuracy).  
  
Two men- Neil and his brother, david- were looking down on the carnage occuring in R-26Z.  
  
They were with the federation military- David was a sniper, Neil was a heavy weapons specialist. They usually hid on an obscure hill with cover while david picked off the enemies and neil gunned down anyone stupid enough to get near them. They were currently some of the few survivors on the planet with the military. For some reason, half of the base had defected over to the revolutionaries- even one man, who Neil thought he had known well, had tried to kill him earlier, before getting several dozen blasts from Neil's gun in the chest.  
  
"God, what is with these people?" David wondered aloud. "They just suddenly decide to revolt for no god-d good reason and kill everyone. Then they just sit around waiting for something, even though I've shot 20... no, 21 in the head" and he reloaded his rifle with another energy cartridge. Neil said "Uhhh... I dunno, maybe they want money or something.... what the HELL?"  
  
The milling dissidents- a mix of civilians armed with everything from outdated pistols, to knives, to beam weapons, and about half of the military troops- suddenly stopped. Every single one stared at the two of them.  
  
David then mumbled "look, I got a transmission... they're sending an evacuation shuttle, we can get out with that with the rest of the guys..."  
  
Neil looked at him and said "well, at least they aren't mo-" he fell to the ground clutching his head, screaming.  
  
David yelled "What? What's wrong?" "MY... HEAD... FIRE... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA- " Suddenly, he stopped screaming. "uhhh... Neil?"  
  
Neil stood up with an odd expression on his face, grabbed one of the smaller rifles from his belt, and pointed at david.  
  
"Neil, what the hell are you doing?"  
  
Neil spoke... yet it sounded oddly like... a woman's voice?  
  
"Your brother no longer exists."  
  
"What the hell are y-" The shot that went through David's head ended his sentence, his confusion, and his life.  
  
ARKAN SAYS: I do like that ending, though. 


	15. Dark Nightmare Chapter 15

ARKAN SAYS (in advance) (again): Right, I don't particularly like this chapter either. And there'll be a big post at the end.Chapter 15: Deepening Nightmare   
  
Well, samus thought to herself, that's wonderful. People are dying already and i have my own problems here...  
"Samus?" adam said through the comlink.  
"What?"  
"Shouldn't we be leaving soon?  
"Aren't the engines down?"  
"Well, repairs will take less time than i origonally thought..."   
"Adam, what i'm doing here is far more im-"  
"No, it is not. We should leave..."  
  
-Was it just me, samus though, or did adam sound a bit strange right then?  
  
"Adam, i'm busy with something far more important than some border world." She then shut off the communicator.  
  
Adam irritated samus somewhat- wether he (it?) had picked up the habit recently, or it was a side effect of being transferred to a computer, he had become extremely direct and commanding, and fairly annoying. Samus had been getting annoyed with him as of late.  
  
Something involving the dark nightmare was nagging samus at the back of her mind, but she couldn't think of what. All she could think of was to find out what was in the "DM ruins" she had found on her map...  
  
Wait.   
  
The space pirate computers had said they found the Delta Metroid in a tomb-like structure in one of the asteroids.  
  
Delta Metroid.  
DM.  
  
Perhaps there would be some sort of solution to the Delta Metroid, which would make dealing with the Dark Nightmare far easier. The entrance was on the other side of the room. Samus approached it, opened the door (which was oddly large...)-   
  
-And out stepped ridley, who dived at samus. Samus jumped back, and stumbled just as ridley fired a beam at her-  
  
-blowing open the wall and opening the room to vacuum, sucking samus out-   
  
-samus was flailing in nothing-  
  
-and suddenly her face hit the deck. She scrambled to her feet, beam cannon first, and her eyes darted about the room. The door was normally sized and still clozed, no ridley, no gaping hole venting air (and herself) out into vacuum to suffocate and otherwise die painfully and slowly. She knew what had just happened (dark nightmare incident!), but only part of her brain would accept it; the rest was still screaming.  
  
Slowly, she calmed down, and managed to get the nerve to walk over and open the door.  
  
A space pirate corpse tumbled out; Samus practically jumped out of her suit. All showed signs of being killed not by other space pirates, but by being dismembered, meaning by the Delta Metroid. Chances are the space pirates were going to take care of the bodies (she had no idea what they did with them) when the dark nightmare had gotten loose and taken over. This, of course, did not help her nerves at all. Samus took a second to calm down before walking up the dimly-lit corridor.

ARKAN SAYS: Okay, there may be a small... or large delay to the next chapter. Why? Because I wrote this all a year (or more) ago, I had a humongous combined case of procrastination AND writer's block, school, etc... I've gotten new ideas for the next chapter, but school is starting again soon. Blarg. In any case, I WILL finish this. Expect... uh... something a bit above 5 more chapters that are a LOT longer than the previous ones. I wrote these originally in Notepad so I couldn't tell how long they were; thus the shortness of the chapters.

SUMMARY- Wrote this a year ago, blah blah, writer's block, blah, school, blah, new ideas, yada yada, school again, talky-talky, 5 chapters, longer, chatter chatter, notepad.


End file.
